Thomas McGuane - Nothing but Blue Skies

“I guess that’s why we’ve been so safe,” said Gracie to Frank. She seemed lost by this new Holly. Frank was numb.

“I hope you’ll realize with what love I say this,” Holly said. “Your generation, especially with your own out-of-state experiences, has been pretty much bent on self-discovery. Something very different happens when standards enter into it.”

Frank missed something here. “What are out-of-state experiences, darling?”

Holly laughed. “Experiences outside of Montana!”

“Uh- huh . Just what it sounds like.”

Gracie turned slowly toward Lane. “Lane, do we have you to thank for this?”

“I’m not sure what ‘this’ is, but probably you have Holly to thank.”

“Mom, you’re not even from here!”

“Where are you from, Mrs. Copenhaver?” Lane asked quietly.

“Louisiana.”

“Louisiana,” mused Lane. “I’ve often heard how colorful it is.”

“Don’t be a wise guy,” said Gracie. “It’s a great place.” Lane bobbed his head agreeably. “You can get a soft-shell po’ boy there which sets it apart in my eyes.”

“I’ve heard a good deal about your organization, Lane,” said Frank. “What do you hope to accomplish? Elect some people?”

“First of all, it’s not my organization. We see ourselves equally vested in Montana. We don’t want to elect anybody. We simply wish to provide an atmosphere of accountability throughout the state.”

“Who’s trying to hide the water …”

“Exactly. That’s the magnetic issue which collects all the other iron filings. We take the position that no water leaves the state, period. That tells you all you need to know. It tells you who the tree huggers are, the wolf recovery sleazos, the grizzly kissers, the trout pinkos —” Frank glanced over to Holly to see if he had become a trout pinko. She looked straight back at him, through him.

“Uh, Lane. Some of the state is twelve thousand feet high and, uh, water goes downhill, as I remember. Seems like some of it’s going to leave the state.”

“Not if you impound it.”

“Not if you impound it …”

“Exactly.”

“But then all the streams and rivers would, would be impoundments, all the beautiful streams and rivers.”

Holly and Lane chanted at him, trying to help him see the light: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch!” This phrase must have held some philosophical importance to them.

“I met one of the wolf enthusiasts,” Frank said noncommittally.

“Those people — the birds, bees, wolf and buffalo people — need to know that Montana is not a zoo,” said Lane. He got up, went to the kitchen and came back with a plate of little reddish brown discs. It was elk jerky that he had made himself. He passed the plate around.

“I start every session of the legislature passing out jerky to my fellow Republicans.”

“We’re Democrats,” said Gracie. “What do you give Democrats?”

“A piece of my mind — no, just kidding. I try to give them a sense of our ideology. Liberals think a victimology is an ideology — just line up victims and the policy will dictate itself. T’ain’t so, McGee. There’s a way of looking at this world and this country and, more importantly, this state that begins with saddle leather and distance, unsolved distance. And water. American government is run on the squeaking wheel getting the grease. In Montana, we not only don’t need grease, we don’t need the wheel. We need water, and we’re going to keep every drop that’s ours .”

Frank was looking down at his disc of jerky, held between thumb and forefinger. He was trying to sink his nail into it while wondering what sort of family or town could produce a dipshit like this. Lane had the gleaming true-believer tone of a James Watt, but with his own beetling menace. It was the knowledge that people like this existed that made Frank really fear that he was losing some advantage in business. Given that Lane was dating Holly, Frank felt that if this were an Arab nation and he, Frank, were a middling sort of emir, he would go on ahead and have Lane beheaded. Maybe arrange to have the head fall into a bag so that Holly wouldn’t be traumatized. Have the headless corpse float out to sea after dark; try to do it in a thoughtful way. Maybe have an orchestra. So long, head.

Frank excused himself to use the bathroom, which was at the end of a corridor behind the steep stairwell. Lane followed him back there. Frank was surprised.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he said.

“Just a quick word with you,” said Lane.

Frank stopped. “What is it?”

“Well?”

“Well what?”

“What do you think?”

“About what, Lane?”

“About me and Holly?”

“As a couple?”

“As a couple.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifty-three.”

“You’re several decades older than Holly, Lane. I think that’s a bit extreme.”

“Don’t get yourself off the hook with that, Frank. What do you actually think?”

Frank appraised him for a moment, feeling challenged. “It’s not so much a matter of thinking, Lane. It’s more a feeling.”

“A feeling of what?”

“Of being sick to my stomach.”

Lane smiled evenly and said, “Fair enough.”

Frank went into the bathroom and closed the door, bouncing a douche bag that hung from a hook there. It looked like some tired thing from a yard sale. There were small porcelain fragments of an angel fastened to the wall, children’s towels with cowboy and Indian scenes on them, a sunburst on the toilet seat and a claw-foot tub. He realized that he didn’t need to use the bathroom and that the reflexive trip down the hallway to its door was out of hope that Gracie would follow for a heart-to-heart talk, bandied remarks or whispers of assignation. He was eager to tell her that he thought he had a real chance of going broke, but he didn’t want Lane or Holly to hear. He desperately wanted her to know that he might fail. Nevertheless, his short absence produced a change. When he got back to the living room, Gracie, Holly and Lane were standing. Holly had a class and Lane had to get back to the office. Frank heard each of these two before letting his eyes drift to Gracie. She was looking at him.

“I’m available for lunch,” she said, “if you are.”

Frank just smiled and offered a poor joke at departure. “I look forward to seeing you again,” he said to Lane, adding, “Don’t forget your annual physical.”

The women looked over at him in barely concealed astonishment. This was beyond the pale, even for Gracie.

“And you,” said Lane levelly.

“My family’s up and grown,” said Frank.

“Yippee,” said Lane. “By the way, I’ll be down in your town lecturing. You ought to come and see me, see my constituents, before your mind closes completely.”

“Boys, boys, boys,” said Gracie.

Lane stood without motion, made even taller by the lace-up boots that stuck out incongruously from the cuffless bottoms of his suit pants. Don’t want to get fooled by this arch-bumpkin livery, Frank thought; guy like that’d run a Dun and Bradstreet on you in a minute. Instead, he looked at his daughter, who had become a bit corn-fed, one of the few predictable effects of zealotry. As soon as he could get to a phone, he meant to offer her a trip around the world. Any horizon-broadening at all would reduce this Lane to a dot. Furthermore, he suspected it would be Gracie’s view that Lane was the sort of thing to be expected when Frank was functioning as a solo parent. If he could get her to a restaurant, he would disabuse her of that, big time.

They saw Lane to his pickup truck. Holly kissed her fingertips and reached through the window to touch Lane’s liver lips. Frank watched him bat his eyes in mock collusion; it was unbearable. Lane wound a gray curl around his forefinger and said to her, “So long, pard,” then nodded curtly to Frank and Gracie.